Theatre and performance in Greater Manchester & other places.
Review of Road at Oldham Coliseum. Road, Jim Cartwright’s scabrous slice of 1980s Lancashire life still has the power to knock you sideways. It comes on strong with promises of a riotous night out, all good times and laughs. Only to repeatedly dissolve into the dark dead ends of Thatcher’s Britain – no jobs, no [...]
Review of Things That Divide Us at 53two, Manchester. 53two opened the doors to its new home on Watson Street over a year ago. Although the performance space has played host to an increasing number of shows, I was starting to worry that the pressures of managing a building and keeping it afloat financially had [...]
Review of The Glass Menagerie at Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. The Glass Menagerie was described by Tennessee Williams as a ‘memory play’. Which, as Tom, the play’s narrator explains, means that audiences can expect it to be non-realistic, powered by poetic licence, and a home to “truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion”. Such a [...]
Review of 'While We Were Waiting… Something Changed' at Contact, Manchester. On Oxford Road, a young woman repeatedly emerges from a phone box opposite McDonalds, changing each time into a mind-blowing array of outfits. It’s not a catwalk moment, more a process of development, or in her words “a pilgrimage to find myself”. Although she [...]
Review of We Should Definitely Have More Dancing at Oldham Coliseum. Actor Clara Darcy’s real-life experience with brain cancer forms the basis of We Should Definitely Have More Dancing. Darcy co-wrote the play with Ian Kershaw, and she takes to the stage to play herself. She’s joined by fellow performers Shamia Chalabi and Suzanna Hamilton [...]
Review of Electric Rosary at Royal Exchange, Manchester. St Grace’s Convent, the setting for Tim Foley’s new play Electric Rosary, has seen better days. The pleasing symmetry of the chapel’s parquet flooring is now cluttered with cardboard storage boxes, and a bucket sits ready to catch rain drops from the leaking roof. Disrepair isn’t the [...]
Review of Habibti Driver at Bolton Octagon. It’s fitting that Shamia Chalabi and Sarah Henley include an Arabic term of endearment in the title of their new play, because love and affection are the bedrocks of comedy drama Habibti Driver. Taxi driver Ashraf often refers to daughter Shazia as his ‘habibti’, although their relationship is [...]
Review of The Jungle Book at Oldham Coliseum. Although the stories may be well-known, the setting for Jessica Swale’s adaptation of The Jungle Book is refreshingly unexpected. Instead of dense undergrowth, a graffiti-swathed urban playground provides a world of ramps, ropes and climbing frames for Rudyard Kipling’s characters to jump, slide and swing their way [...]
Review of The House with Chicken Legs at HOME, Manchester. “The best parties are where all the guests are dead!” proclaims Marinka’s grandmother Baba – and with all the music, dancing, home-cooked food, and free-flowing drink, they certainly look like a good night out. Except Baba is a Yaga, a Guardian of The Gate between [...]
Review of 'The Bread We Break' at Contact Theatre, Manchester. To talk of breaking bread with others suggests more than just a communal meal. The phrase also implies a coming-together, making a connection, and perhaps sharing ideas. While not a crumb passes our lips during Miray Sidhom’s new show, her insightful reflections on bread, political [...]
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Theatre and performance in Greater Manchester & other places.
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Theatre and performance reviews in the Greater Manchester area
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